5.1 Policies for information security
Requires an information security policy together with supporting topic specific policies. These must be defined, approved by management, published, communicated to and acknowledged by relevant personnel and relevant inte
5
artefacts
1
held by a system
1
at each review
hard
to go live
Policy repository / GRC workspace
where the evidence lives
teal = a system already holds it · olive = produced at each review
system holds itEvidence a system already holds
- Acknowledgement records from personnel and from relevant external parties confirming receipt and understanding · HR system / LMS
periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review
- Evidence of publication and of communication to personnel and to relevant interested parties, such as intranet publication records or distribution lists · Policy repository / GRC workspace
governing documentDocuments that govern the control
- The approved information security policy, showing the approving authority and the date of approval · Policy repository / GRC workspace
- The set of topic specific policies beneath it, such as access control, cryptography, backup, acceptable use and supplier security, each with an owner · Policy repository / GRC workspace
- The review record for each policy showing the planned cycle, the reviewer and the outcome, plus reviews triggered by significant change · Policy repository / GRC workspace
First move
Mostly documents and reviews. Pull the 1 system-held artefact from your HR system / LMS on a schedule; put the documents under version control with an owner and review date, and log each review as a dated record with a named reviewer.
Common gaps auditors find
- A single overarching policy exists while the topic specific policies it refers to were never written
- Acknowledgement captured at induction only, so no one who joined before the current version has agreed to it
- Review dates rolled forward with no evidence anyone read the document or considered whether change had occurred
- Contractors, temporary staff and suppliers excluded from communication because the distribution list is drawn from the payroll system
Do this for your whole sheet
Paste the rows you run your controls from and get this mapping for every control at once, with the periodic-review ones flagged and a first move per row. No account for the first run.
Build my evidence sheet